This Sunday afternoon saw 293 crews line up for the start of the Vesta International Masters Head of the River Race, to be rowed over the championship course from Mortlake to Putney. There were 296 entries but three crews did not start and one crew did not finish. The club entered seven crews; four open eights, two women’s eights and a women’s quad scull. We also had an interest in a composite Quintin/upper Thames RC Open Masters H/I quad scull (with Tom Bishop on board). Our Open Masters H eight repeated their success in the Hammersmith Head, being the fastest of the four masters H crews and 22 seconds ahead of their closest rivals, a composite crew from Grovesnor/Royal Chester/Windermere.
A contingent from the “Barflies” squad surprisingly found themselves entered in Open Novice eights, based on their British Rowing points score, and finished a creditable second in category to a very fast but younger BTC Southampton crew, who beat our old boys by 2 min. 14.2 sec. on raw times. Our second Open Novice eight finished very much in the middle of the field, eighth out of 14. Our Open Masters D eight left some room for improvement, eighteenth out of twenty.
Our Women’s Masters C eight put in another consistent performance, compared with their result in the Hammersmith Head, finishing in mid-field once again. The Women’s Novice eight were fourth out of six after applying the age handicap and the Women’s Novice quad scull were fifth out of six.
Tom Bishop helped propel the Quintin/Upper Thames composite quad into second place in the Open Masters H/I category.
Simon Hunt was a last minute sub in crew No. 63, Tyrian, but didn’t get a credit for his Quintin membership.
A summary of our results:
Note: Handicaps appear to have been applied within category rather than absolutely e.g the H/I quad’s handicap is less than the Novice eights’.
| Bow No. | Category | Crew | Raw Time | H’cap sec. | H’cap Time | Cat. Posn. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 83 | Op Mas H 8+ | Quintin BC | 20:53.9 | N/A | N/A | 1 of 4 |
| 38 | Op Mas D 8+ | Quintin BC | 21:31.4 | N/A | N/A | 18 of 20 |
| 228 | Op Mas H/I 4x- | QBC / Upper Thames | 22:10.8 | 37 | 21:33.8 | 2 of 4 |
| 96 | Op Novice 8+ | QBC / Old Bears (USA) | 22:14.1 | 63 | 21:11.1 | 8 of 15 |
| 91 | Op Novice 8+ | Quintin BC | 22:30.7 | 116 | 20:34.7 | 2 of 15 |
| 120 | WMas C 8+ | Quintin BC | 22:45.7 | N/A | N/A | 8 of 14 |
| 280 | W Novice 4x- | Quintin BC | 24:11.6 | 26 | 23:45.6 | 5 of 6 |
| 166 | W Novice 8+ | Quintin BC | 24:31.8 | 49 | 23:42.8 | 4 of 8 |
Race results are available at https://rowresults.co.uk/VIMH26.
Photographs of all our crews may be found at https://quintinboatclub.org/gallery/index.php?ref=3733.
There is a YouTube video of the race on the AllMarkOne channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPwH2jGKcXw. The table below shows approximate times within the video for our crews.
| Bow No. | Crew | Approx. Time |
|---|---|---|
| 38 | Op Mas D 8+ | 21:38 |
| 83 | Op Mas H 8+ | 33:47 |
| 91 | Op Novice 8+ | 37:10 |
| 96 | Op Novice 8+ | 38:53 |
| 120 | WMas C 8+ | 50:08 |
| 166 | W Novice 8+ | 1:03:46 |
| 228 | Op Mas H/I 4x- | 1:26:00 |
| 280 | W Novice 4x- | 1:39:25 |
The winning Open Masters H crew – left to right: Ian Hyslop (stroke), Geoff Peel (7), Andy Tompkins (6), Darko Miksic (5), Hilary Cook (cox), Richard Lonergan (4), Slavo Radosevic (3), Graham Bagnall (2), Huw Jones (bow).
